This is supposed to be a great jacket and it seemed that way to me until I finished my ride. The cuffs are made from a very absorbent material. The inside and outside of the cuff is one piece of this material. After a 5 mile ride in heavy rain with temps in the low 40's I felt great! The jacket performed extremely well keeping me warm and dry yet cool and comfortable at the same time. The problem came after I took off my gloves. The cuffs were soaking wet and stayed wet for hours! I need a jacket I can wear around camp, or around town while touring. The wet cuffs were very annoying. I guess it's ok for sports when you're just going home after your work out or race or whatever but if you need to keep wearing the jacket after the rain stops then it's much less than ideal. Luckily I had all the tags and packaging so I just sent it back to SP. I wish I could have kept it because it felt great other than the cuffs.

I'm going to try an Integral Designs Cruiser jacket next. Prolite gear has them for sale. It doesn't seem to have nearly as much venting as the Elite but I'm sold on the eVent fabric. It's really a shame that more products are not made from this. I believe that Goretex has some exclusive relationship with manufacturers that prevents them from using eVent.

I have the original. I had a similar problem with the cuffs but maybe not to the extent that you had. This is the one and only complaint I had with the jacket.

But any jacket is going to get wet after a day in the rain and is going to take time to dry.

Well after my short ride and shaking the droplets off the jacket it was completely dry, except for the cuffs that were cold and wet for hours afterwards!

Also they now have the nerve to charge me a 10% restocking fee on the jacket I wore in the rain, even though the design is clearly defective.

Don't waste your money on this poorly designed product, this is version 2.0 you'd think they'd have fixed that by now.

I haven't found that to be the case with mine. I love mine. It's perfect.

if you wear that jacket in the rain then the cuffs will get wet and stay wet, maybe that doesn't bother you because you just take the jacket off after a ride so it's not a problem for you but I defy you to tell me that the cuffs aren't wet after riding in the rain.

Mine haven't been wet after riding in the rain for 4 hours. Maybe I just got a freak one.

you don't have the same jacket they sent to me, so are you saying that the material on the outside of the cuff (where the velcro is) is not absorbent? is it waterproof eVent fabric like the rest of the jacket? or at least waterproof or resistant?

Yeah you told us already.

I blame my problem on not having the cuffs closed properly, along with the fact that rain is blowing straight at me and some water is bound to make it up the cuffs.


I have seen dozens of reviews on the V1 and V2. Yours is the first to call the jacket "clearly defective". Get back to use when you have the perfect jacket, but something tells me you are going to go broke in restocking fees.

@spinnaker: I understand you're trying to be a dick now, good job!

Please, let us know when you find a jacket that you can wear for hours in the rain, then continue to wear at your dinner party.

another dick, another great job!

Ain't it funny when a dick OP draws lots of dick comments?

Every square centimeter of the outer surface of a rain jacket should be water proof or water resistant. Every rain jacket I've ever owned or seen is like this with the exception of the SP Elite. I call that defective design, you can call it what you want.

Closing the cuffs would not make any difference because the problem is that the OUTSIDE of the cuff is absorbent. I want a jacket I can still wear around camp after riding through a short shower. I never mentioned riding in the rain for hours or anything about dinner parties.

are you done yet?

I call it dick picking

Can you post a picture of this problem?

I am having trouble understanding all the comments.

Ray

Sorry I sent the jacket back and I didn't take any photos. Basically the end of the sleeve is a separate piece of fabric that is sewn to the sleeve. It is about 2 inches wide, so the last 2 inches of the sleeve is what I'm talking about. This piece of fabric is highly absorbent unlike the rest of the outside of the jacket. I believe there was more of this fabric on the inside of the collar, but only the inside, the outside of the collar is waterproof eVent fabric. The cuff is not like that, the absorbent material is folded over to create the cuff so it absorbs the rain falling on it from the outside and soaks through to the inside part of the cuff so you end up with 2 inches of cold wet fabric against the back of your hand unless you're wearing gloves or just take the jacket off and let it dry over night. The rest of the jacket can be completely dry when you shake it off after brief exposure to heavy rain but the cuffs remain wet for hours. This isn't the worst discomfort in the world but it is completely avoidable by using a jacket with a more logical design,

Wow, I don't know, but that sounds like some sort of mistake. Perhaps a quality control problem or something. Ask them to examine the returned jacket to see if everything is correct. With all the accolades that jacket has garnered, I have a hard time believing a design flaw of that nature could go unnoticed.

I just bought their Touring Jacket, I'm gonna have to go home and examine it closely, though, I'm sure there are no untreated cuffs. But I'll look anyway.

I ordered 2 of them, L and XL, to see which one fit better. I was going to keep the XL until I noticed the problem so I examined the L and the construction was the same. I spoke to SP about it and they confirmed that the jacket is supposed to be like that. They just figured that most people are wearing it with gloves.

Hmmm. Now I'm really gonna have a look at that jacket I bought. Though, the Elite 2.0 is a cold weather rain jacket, I find it strange (and poor practice) that they'd make assumptions like that.

I think ekitel raises an important point. Why would they make the cuffs out of an absorbent material?

I've never worn an elite, but I do have a touring version which does not have this problem.

If it is like the V1. The piece that the OP is ranting about is a the small cloth piece for the Velcro. While a little uncomfortable when it gets wet, I really don't think it stacks up to trashing the whole jacket.

Admittedly, it would have been a better design to place the Velcro on the sleeve and the more absorbent cloth piece on the strap.

Many rain jackets don't have a Velcro strap at the sleeve but this really isn't a very good option on a cycling jacket. No closure at all would mean water up your sleeve. An elastic cuff would mean no ventalion when it is needed.

ekitel, I think I see why we have different experiences. You apparently wear your jacket without gloves, right? I never do. So I'm guessing I don't notice the moist cuff because I'm wearing gloves.

no that's not what I'm talking about, why don't you read what I wrote again

and don't accuse me of ranting ************ (edited by Mod)

Such language.